The President Is Missing(67)

How is he going to like being First Husband?

We may find out sooner rather than later. Let’s see how the next half hour goes.

Next to her, filling in for her husband as a breakfast partner: her chief of staff, Peter Evian. He holds out his phone, showing her the time: 6:56.

She gives him a quick nod.

“Madam Vice President,” he says, loud enough for the agents in front to hear, “since we have a few minutes before our reservation, would you mind if I made a personal call?”

“Not at all, Pete. Go right ahead.”

“I’ll just step out.”

“Take your time.”

And she knows, for appearance’s sake, that Peter will do just that—he will call his mother and have a nice long documented phone call with her.

Peter leaves the car and walks up 13th Street with his phone to his ear just as a group of three joggers turns the corner from G Street Northwest and moves past him toward the vice president’s limo.

The joggers slow as they near the vice-presidential motorcade. The man in the front of the pack, far older and less fit than his two partners, looks at the limo and seems to mention something to the others. They slow to a walk and engage with the Secret Service agents standing at their posts by her vehicle.

“Madam Vice President,” says her driver, tapping his ear, “the Speaker of the House is right out there. One of those joggers.”

“Lester Rhodes? You’re kidding,” she says, trying not to overdo her show of surprise.

“He wants to say a quick hello.”

“I’d sooner set my hair on fire,” she says.

The agent doesn’t laugh. He turns his head, waiting for more. “Shall I tell him—”

“Well, I can’t very well refuse him, can I? Tell him to come in.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He speaks into his earpiece.

“Give us privacy, Jay. I wouldn’t want you and Eric to get burned by any fireworks.”

This time the agent chuckles appropriately. “Yes, ma’am.”

Never hurts to be careful. Secret Service agents are subject to subpoena just like anyone else. So are the Capitol Police guarding the Speaker. Everyone would tell the same story under oath now, if it ever came to that. It was all a coincidence. The Speaker just happened to jog by while the vice president was waiting for the café to open.

The two agents in the front seat leave the limousine. The smell of sweat and body odor sweeps into the car as Lester Rhodes pops into the back, next to Katherine. “Madam Vice President, just wanted to say hello!”

The door closes behind him. Just the two of them inside the car.

Lester doesn’t look great in running gear. He needs to lose three or four inches in the midsection, and someone should have told him to wear longer running shorts. At least he’s wearing a hat—slate blue, with US CAPITOL POLICE in red stenciling—so she doesn’t have to look at that dopey perfectly sharp part he makes in his silver hair.

He lifts his hat and wipes his forehead with a sweatband. This idiot is wearing a sweatband.

Correction. He’s no idiot. He’s a ruthless tactician who orchestrated the takeover of the House, who knows his members better than they know themselves, who plays a long political game, who never forgets anyone who crosses him, however slight the insult or disrespect, who moves the pieces of the chessboard only after careful deliberation.

He turns to her, his lethal blue eyes reduced to a squint. “Kathy.”

“Lester. Be brief.”

“I have the votes in the House,” he says. “The House is wrapped up like a bow. Is that brief enough?”

One of the things she has learned over the years is the art of not responding too quickly. It buys you time and makes you seem more deliberative.

“Don’t act so uninterested, Kathy. If you weren’t interested, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

She allows his point. “What about the Senate?” she asks.

His shoulders rise. “You’re the president of the Senate, not me.”

She smirks. “But your party controls it.”

“You get twelve on your side, I guarantee my fifty-five will vote to convict.”

The vice president adjusts in her seat to face him squarely. “And why are you telling me this, Mr. Speaker?”

“Because I don’t have to pull this trigger.” He sits back in the seat, settles in. “I don’t have to impeach him. I could just let him twist in the wind, wounded and ineffective. He’s dead in the water, Kathy. He won’t be reelected. I’ll own him for the next two years. So why would I impeach him and watch the Senate remove him from office and give the voters a fresh face like you to run against?”

That possibility had occurred to her—that the president was of more use to Lester Rhodes wounded than gone. “Because you’ll be immortalized in your party for removing a president, that’s why,” she says.

“Maybe so.” He seems to relish that thought. “But there are more important things.”

“There’s something more important to you than being Speaker for life?”

Lester helps himself to a bottle of water in the side compartment, screws off the top, takes a big swallow, then smacks his lips with satisfaction. “One thing is more important, yes,” he says.